


How Gabriel Agreste Got His Groove Back

by oranios (eiua)



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, May December Affair, Power Couple, Working after hours, age gap, aged-up, fashion - Freeform, trips into countryside, work relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2016-06-27
Packaged: 2018-07-18 13:13:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7316578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eiua/pseuds/oranios
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No Kwamis, no powers, no magic. Just fashion and the age gap.</p>
<p>A character study and relationship progression all tied into one with trips into the French countryside, working past office hours and on weekends, discussions about women's clothing and underwear, and awkward talks about moving on from previous loves of your live and into new relationships – including intimacy. AND THE AGE GAP AND ALL THE NECESSARY ANGST AND DOUBT OVER WINE AND CHEESE. </p>
            </blockquote>





	How Gabriel Agreste Got His Groove Back

**Author's Note:**

> First of all: This is a writing experiment. A what-if scenario. Don't read it if you're not into this, and especially don't send me hate if you're not into this. 
> 
> Second of all: The age gap is approximately 22 years. Marinette is in her 20s when she begins to intern for Gabriel's company, which makes him early forties.
> 
> Thirdly: There's no magic in this AU. Just a love story in the middle of the fast-paced world of fashion between two people who live, breathe and eat glamour.

Adrien is born when Gabriel is 22. 

Gabriel Agreste, founder, CEO and head of Design at Agreste House, loses his wife Céline when he is 30 years old.

To, of all things, cancer. She is only 31 when she gets the news in a doctor’s office all on her own on a Monday in August. Outside, the birds chirp and the sun shines. The sky is a radiant blue only found in movies. 

The doctor’s voice does not quiver as she tells Céline she only has a year, two at most, to live. This is very unexpected, she says. 

Céline is a strong woman on most days – no one else could have withstood Gabriel and his moods when his figurative muse refused to show up for work, or when the critics in Le Monde were being particularly harsh on his new line – and the news of her impending death, closer than she thought it was, does not cause her to shed tears. At least, not in the doctor’s office. 

She doesn’t cry in the car on the way home either. The only time tears begin to form in her eyes is when Gabriel breaks down as she tells him the news. Adrien comes running into the master bedroom on clumsy feet, pitter-pattering on the parquet floors of their apartment, asking what’s wrong? Why is Pére crying, Mére?

\--

It rains the day she is buried. The umbrellas crowd around her grave like a black mass, ready to swarm at a moment’s notice but far too hampered by the clouds that hang over them with the onslaught of water.

Gabriel attends the funeral, tiny Adrien with his child’s suit starched and pressed to sharpness. He carries the boy in his arms for what is the last time (he has yet to hit his growth spurt), and when Adrien starts to cry, he lets him dry his tears and his snot on the flap of his black trench coat. He does not reprimand him, nor tell him that big boys don’t cry. He just lets him wail for his mére and sob until his tears run dry. Adrien cries enough for the both for them.

The service was beautiful; the newspapers write a day later. Gabriel Agreste was a pillar of quiet strength amongst the many relatives and mourners crying their hearts out for the deceased Céline Agreste. Her vivaciousness and flair for organizing only the most decadent and well-attended society parties will be missed by Paris.

Céline, on the other hand, wouldn’t have attended her own funeral if she knew of the amount of black everyone was wearing. She was the type to see death as a going-away party rather than some bleak finality. 

\--

The days pass, the stars keep on shining in their lonely posts in the sky. Gabriel mourns his wife's death, grows distant from his son who reminds him all too much of her. He throws himself into growing Agreste House, until it burgeons into an international fashion line headquartered in Paris with stores all over Europe and Asia. 

He doesn't let himself feel too much. One heartbreak was enough. 

\--

At a bright-eyed if slightly hampered by lack of sleep, age 23, Marinette Dupain-Cheng had graduated from Ecolé Chambre de la Syndicale with top honors, glowing recommendations from her professors, and an internship at Gabriel waiting for her at the end of her very short holiday before beginning work. She was walking into what her friends and family called a bright future in the fashion industry on red stilettos, with her trusty pink sketchbook in her purse. 

Of course, she tripped on her way there; right into Gabriel’s arms.


End file.
